TRUE COLORS
Colorful depictions of feathered dinosaurs---including most on these pages---
reflect artistic license. But in 2010 the chicken-size Anchiornis made paleonto-
logical history by becoming the first dinosaur to have the colors of its plumage
brought back to life. A year earlier Jakob Vinther and his colleagues had dis-
covered microscopic pigment sacs, called melanosomes, in the feathers of
an extinct bird. The finding triggered a frenetic race to find colors in dinosaur
feathers as well. In February 2010 a team of Chinese and British scientists
announced that they had found melanosomes in individual feathers of several
dinosaurs that would have produced black and reddish hues. A week later Vin-
ther and his colleagues decoded the full-body coloration of Anchiornis: rusty
red crown, dark gray body, and black-and-white-striped wings.
Microscopic pigment sacs responsible for color in fossil feathers resemble
"sausages and meatballs," says Jakob Vinther, at Yale University. Sausage
shapes impart black; meatball shapes, red and brown. Both appear in a
sample from the cheek feathers of Anchiornis.
n Society Grant The discovery of color in dinosaur feathers was funded in part
by your National Geographic Society membership.
SEM IMAGE: JAKOB VINTHER LEFT . PHOTO: AT SHANDONG TIANYU MUSEUM OF NATURE
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